


Holiday Spirit

by DealingDearie



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 03:35:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5569369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DealingDearie/pseuds/DealingDearie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry isn't feeling all that excited about Christmas, much to Abe and Jo's annoyance, but the night of Christmas Eve finds Henry seeing from a completely different perspective (AKA a Christmas Carol).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holiday Spirit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VividEscapist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VividEscapist/gifts).



Henry went to bed both exhausted and frustrated…and just a bit anxious; that was a common emotional medley for him, but what was the most off-putting about its onset was the fact that it was affecting him so fully on Christmas Eve, of all nights. His diagnosis was simple, yet he wished to ignore it: guilt.

That whole week, Abe and Jo had been asking him what he wanted for Christmas and Henry, aside from being overly cliché and deciding to say that he had everything he wanted already, had merely told them that they didn’t have to get him any presents. Christmas didn’t really feel like Christmas anymore; he doubted that the 236th one would be any different.

While Abe really should have been used to this type of attitude by now, he had taken offense (yet again) and roped Jo into being offended with him; so, Henry went to bed, exasperated and partly ashamed, after having a rather uncomfortable argument with them. Sleep didn’t come to relieve him of his thoughts for an especially long while, but the ticking of the clock at his bedside eventually lulled him into slumber.

“Are you going to wake up or not? I’ve been shaking you for the past few minutes,” came a strangely familiar voice, piercing through the sleepy haze that had invaded Henry’s mind. Slowly, he opened his eyes, only to see Adam standing over him, brow raised expectedly.

Henry sat up quickly, his shoulder blades connecting roughly with the solid headboard, but his instant wariness and fear overwhelmed his senses too much for him to really take notice. Wide-eyed, he swallowed and looked around him, panicking.

“How did you get in here? What did you do to Abe?” he said in a frenzy, throwing back the covers so he could jump to his feet, ignoring the cold rush of winter air that snaked over his skin as Adam started chuckling.

“You still think I’d hurt Abe? How dull can you be, Henry? Besides, I’m not even really here-so, by that logic, I can’t harm him at all. No need to get all worked up,” he explained calmly, shaking his head with that look of amusement in his eyes as Henry only stared at him, confused.

“What?” he asked.

“Let’s skip all the nonsense-stick with the basics, as it were; I’m a figment of your imagination, a representation of your guilt about Christmas, really,” Adam continued to explain with his limited patience as he clapped one hand over Henry’s shoulder and pulled him over to the doorway, despite Henry’s protests and small shoves, “and we’re going on a little trip.”

Almost immediately after Adam finished his sentence, everything around them dropped away and Henry almost felt sick; reality was completely unclear for all of about five seconds, only darkness and silence and the rush of his pounding heart, and then a familiar scene (or rather, a memory) shaped itself around them.

If not for Adam’s steady and unaffected hold on his shoulder, Henry might have collapsed or puked or perhaps even both, but he only ended up leaning quite involuntarily against Adam, panting and flushed. After a moment or so, Henry took notice of the scene before him: Abigail was there, with Abe bundled up in her arms, sitting on the sofa before the sparkling Christmas tree as Henry kneeled down to get the presents from beneath it and hand them to her. There was a warm, loving smile on her face and Abe’s eyes were full of curiosity and wonder as he stared at the lights and ornaments hanging from the tree’s branches.

Henry eventually regained enough composure to stand on his own, and he took a hesitant, nervous step forward; he remembered this.

Abe was four years old, Abigail wore a gleaming wedding ring, and Henry had just gotten a hefty pay raise at the hospital; their lives had been good, then. Watching it all unfold before his very eyes was a startling and surreal experience, but he relished the chance to witness a living, breathing Abigail, rather than a black and white photo. Her gaze was lively and excited as she stared at Henry, setting the presents on the seat beside her so that Abraham could rip the wrapping paper off piece by piece with his chubby little fingers. Henry watched himself stand and take the seat on the other side of Abigail, wrap an arm around her shoulder, and lean down to kiss Abe’s forehead; it was all too bittersweet, and Henry felt tears in his eyes. He turned back around to Adam, hoping he’d have some kind of answer-any reason at all.

Adam caught his searching gaze and shrugged, gesturing to the memory in front of them.

“It wasn’t the presents that made you all so happy-it was the fact that you were a family. Do you see Abigail smiling at the gifts? No, she’s smiling at the two of you. Keep that in mind,” he said softly, holding out a hand toward Henry. Henry shook his head and turned back to stare at what his family had been, hearing Abigail’s heartbreaking laughter, seeing the curve of her lips and the light in her eyes. At the sight of Henry’s reluctant expression, Adam lowered his hand, allowing Henry that moment.

After a while, he knew that they had to move on, so he took Henry’s shoulder and pulled him away. Henry hardly heard anything Adam said, as he went on about something that at least sounded like ‘stage one,’ and was only focused on keeping the fresh sound of Abe’s laughter and Abigail’s voice at the forefront of his memory, wiping tears from his eyes as reality warped for the second time.

The next few seconds took them away to what looked like the apartment (more specifically, Abe’s room), where Abe was sitting up in his bed, staring wistfully at something he held in his hands.  Henry, knowing he remained unseen, couldn’t resist the urge to step forward in some kind of effort to erase the look of sadness on his son’s face, but he knew that he couldn’t reach out. He wasn’t really there; none of this was real-that’s what he told himself, at least.

“What is he looking at?” Henry asked, puzzled, while Adam stepped past him to go stand behind Abe’s shoulder, on the other side of the bed, eyes cast down to stare at the object. Henry followed, overly curious and a little worried, brow furrowed as he came around to stop beside Adam, where he saw a picture of Abigail, Henry, and a young Abe on what looked to be Christmas morning. Henry remembered that, too; Abe had been ten, he’d just lost another baby tooth, and they’d gotten him an extra few presents to make up for the ordeal. They all looked oddly radiant, especially Abigail.

Abe sighed deeply and moved to set the picture back down in his nightstand drawer, on top of lots of other pictures with smiling, familiar faces.

“He remembers how good Christmas used to be; you were all so happy. It hasn’t been the same since Abigail left,” Adam explained again, turning to Henry with a disappointed look, “ _You_ haven’t been the same.”

Realizing the truth of his words, Henry frowned, wanting to go and sit beside Abe and console him and…promise that things would be different. Yes, things would be different. He’d decorate the whole apartment all through the night if he had to, working tirelessly to make Christmas feel like Christmas again, if only to make Abe smile. That was his resolve, he knew.

Smirking, Adam took his elbow and started tugging him away, but Henry thought of something, suddenly.

“Wait!” he protested, and Adam, surprisingly, obliged, stopping before the doorway, “Is this….”A Christmas Carol’?”

Adam laughed, nodding.

“I wondered when you’d catch on; you always did like that book.”

Henry rolled his eyes, offended by the unoriginality of his own dream, and briefly thought about what the next scene would be before Adam sighed in annoyance, counting on each finger: “Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost of Christmas Present, Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. I’m sure I just felt some disturbance in the air, in real life-the day when Henry Morgan doesn’t know his literary plot points…”

Shaking his head in moderate disappointment, Adam ushered Henry into their next reality.

Turns out, Henry really did like Charles Dickens enough to have a consistent dream, and they found themselves in Jo’s apartment, but everything looked a lot different: new furniture, new decorations, new clothes, and new Christmas music playing on the radio. He figured it made sense (it _was_ the future, after all).

Henry was there, sitting next to Jo with a cup of tea in his hand, ignoring the view of the snow falling outside through the window, but Jo watched it with contentment, resting her head against her arm as she laid there on the sofa; Henry appeared to be trying to enjoy the new music.

Adam sighed and Henry, still bothered by the sight of himself from an outside perspective, turned to Adam angrily.

“Now, what’s wrong with this picture? I don’t see any sadness,” Henry insisted, annoyed that Adam always seemed to point out what he was missing.

“She’s sad, but she’s good at keeping her emotions buried,” Adam offered, nudging Henry, “quite like me, actually. I bet we’d get along just fine.” Henry nudged him back, but with more furor and much worse intent, and Adam only rubbed his side and went along with it, much to Henry’s surprise. Maybe this figment version of Adam was some long-lost good twin, or maybe Henry had a shoddy imagination.

Henry ignored the thought and stared at Jo, trying to catch the hints of sadness that Adam claimed were there, and, eventually, he saw them, noting how Jo occasionally glanced at Henry beside her and to the snow outside, as if she wanted to go out but thought better of it. He noticed the absence of a Christmas tree, and the absence of any presents, and there were small, light lines on Jo’s face. He wondered how far into the future this was, and felt a sharp regret for how things had turned out for these people in his mind’s eye. A second thought surprised him: he and Jo were..together, or would be. It was a small comfort, despite the circumstances.

Adam snapped, pulling Henry out of his reverie, and gestured to the door.

“Ready to wake up, Scrooge?” he asked teasingly, and Henry, eager to make things right, nodded quickly, willingly walking alongside Adam for the first time in his life.

Adam opened the door for him and the blizzard outside morphed into a white, hazy blur; Henry opened his eyes.

He was back in his bedroom and, as far as he could tell, Adam wasn’t hovering over him; the only sound was the ticking of the clock. He allowed himself a moment to sigh and sink into his pillows and enjoy the relief of being back in reality, but he soon jumped up out of bed and got to work.

It was perhaps the most challenging thing he’d ever had to do in only a matter of ten hours (Abe and Jo were late risers on Christmas, thankfully), but when Abe woke and Jo came over the apartment, they were both surprised to find Henry, sitting peacefully with slightly noticeable darkness just beneath his eyes, smiling, and with two steaming cups of coffee in his hands. The Christmas tree was completely decorated, the garland was hanging at the ceiling’s edges, and the Christmas music was playing quietly in the background; there were even presents beneath the tree. 

Abe and Jo both stared, astonished.

“Merry Christmas,” Henry said sincerely.

If only for their sake. 

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to have Abigail be the Ghost of Christmas Past, Abe be the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Jo be the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, but I decided on making them the focus of each corresponding scene instead (I also liked the idea of Adam as a guide so that affected the decision). 
> 
> I hope you like it, anyway! :D 
> 
> Happy Holidays! :3


End file.
